The Electronic Frontier Foundation has rated the top internet companies on their efforts to protect user privacy when governments request access. And Twitter gets a stellar 3.5 out of 4 stars – the second highest rating among its peers.
The EFF examined the policies of 18 top internet companies, such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Google. They rated their policies based on whether they:

Tell users about data demands

Are transparent about government requests

Fight for user privacy in the courts

Fight for user privacy in Congress

And Twitter scores a near-perfect 3.5 out of 4 on these four categories.

Twitter scores full points when it comes to telling users about data demands, and fighting for user privacy in the courts and in Congress. The company earned a half star on being transparent about government requests thanks to its published guidelines for law enforcement requests, but loses half a star for not publishing the number and type of requests it has received.

In 2011, Twitter scored one full star when it came to telling its users about data requests and three half stars in the other three categories.

Besides 2012 newcomer Sonic.net who scored 4/4 stars this year, Twitter scored the highest number of stars from the EFF this year. It beat out Facebook which received only 1.5 stars, Apple with just one star and Foursquare which scored a disappointing zero stars.

You can take a look at the EFF’s full rankings and report on companies protecting user privacy here.

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